Gstaad, Switzerland, July 12, 2013 – April Ross and Kerri Walsh’s run at the Gstaad Grand Slam came to an end on Friday when they lost in straight sets to Brazilians Maria Antonelli and Agatha Bednarczuk, but the pair are confident that once they have hit their stride that they will be challenging beach volleyball’s leading teams.
The Brazilians beat Ross and Walsh 2-0 (21-17, 22-20) to bring an end to Walsh’s first tournament on the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour since the 2012 Stare Jablonki Grand Slam, which came a week after she had won her third Olympic gold at London 2012.
Since then Walsh gave birth to her third child in April and is teaming up with Ross with the intention of the pair going through to the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games together.
“Overall it is really exciting,” Walsh said. “We each saw a glimpse of our potential and that’s amazingly exciting. I think we can be the most dominant side in the world and I think this is a great start. We played four really good teams who are playing really good volleyball and we hung in there.
“It was just unfortunate that we played such a great team with the deficit that we had and not pull it out because we were so close. But we are going to fine tune and I think the world is in trouble, respectfully.”
Ross will now return to her long-term partner Jennifer Kessy for the Long Beach Grand Slam which runs from July 22-27, while Walsh is due to play alongside Whitney Pavlik. Then towards the end of 2013 Ross and Walsh will go fulltime, though the pair are remaining tight-lipped on the subject and offered only a coy, “by the end of the year,” when pressed on the subject.
In Gstaad they won all three pool matches to go straight into the second elimination round, but Maria Antonelli and Agatha proved to be too sharp for them.
“I’m disappointed in how we did,” Ross said. “I thought we played better each match in pool play and then I feel we went back a step in this match. Kerri hurt her abs a little bit and I didn’t contribute at all; I wasn’t digging balls and couldn’t get my serve in the court.
“I just don’t feel like we definitely didn’t play as well as we could have and I definitely didn’t keep up my end. I’m just glad that Kerri came back and agreed to play with me in this event.”